Author Archives: Erinn

I would make a GREAT criminal

Posted on by

I am a crime show junkie. True crime, fiction, forensic science — bring it on. How can the directionality of a drop of blood point to a murderer? How can someone keep a deadly secret for 20 years and suddenly confess? A few months ago, Tivo suggested a show I hadn’t yet heard of: “Snapped,” true tales of female murderers (and attempted murderers — we can’t all be successful). I am hooked. Sometimes I am horrified (you stabbed your mother to death for money?); sometimes I can almost relate (in the words of Chris Rock: I’m not saying it was right, but I understand). But I am always fascinated.

However, although a few women seem to have put some effort into plotting their crimes, the vast majority leave me thinking, “You really thought you were going to get away with THAT?” So I thought I’d let you in on a few things I’ve learned about crime. (Try humming “Cell Block Tango” to yourself while reading for added enjoyment.)

1. This is by far the most important rule: Never have an accomplice! I don’t care how much you pay them, they are always the ones to break.

2. Hit men are tricky. It is almost always a bad idea to ask your teen daughter if any of her friends would like to earn some extra money by killing your husband. Ditto your barfly friends. And if you must hire a hit man, do not write him a check using his own name, or sign it using your own name, especially if you have sworn to police you’ve never seen that person in your life.

3. Police can tell where cell phone calls are placed. So if you swear you made a call from Texas, but you are really in Arkansas stalking your ex, the police are going to catch on pretty quickly.

4. Speaking of cell phones, if the police want to check something on yours, and you peek in your purse and say, “Oops, left it at home,” make sure you haven’t already given the police your number. They can call it. And hear your purse ring.

5. Keep an eye out for surveillance cameras. This will prevent awkward conversations, like, Police: Were you at work all morning? You: Yes. Police: Well here is surveillance footage from the parking garage showing you at your car. You: I forgot, I went to get a paper I left in the car. Police: Here is more footage of you leaving the garage. You: I remembered I left it at home. Police: Are you having an affair? You: No. Police: Here is footage of you making our with your business partner in a hotel lobby. Etc.

6. Four pythons, drugs and a loaded gun are not good items to pack for the beach. Hanging out with the people who brought said items is not a good idea.

7. No matter how much you love scrapbooking (and Lord knows I do), do not scrapbook pictures of you with the people you kill. Especially if in the pictures they are wearing jewelry you stole from them and are currently wearing. And you’ve already told the police you’ve never seen those people in your life.

8. If you have already decided to commit your crime, try to hide your animosity toward your intended victim. It never looks good when the police start asking questions and EVERYONE points their fingers at you. “Oh yes, she couldn’t stop talking about how much she hated [victim], always threatening to kill [victim].” Leaving voice messages on the victim’s answering machine expressing same does you no favors.

9. When you are cleaning up the crime scene, going to your neighborhood grocery store and buying only blood-stain-removing carpet cleaner and heavy-duty trash bags raises a few red flags. Worse if you use your “bonus card” with all your identifying information. Driving away in a rented Uhaul cements your fate.

10. Finally, if you are a chemist going through a bitter divorce, ordering 18 2-liter bottles of hydrochloric acid and a 55-gallon, acid-resistant drum never looks good.Especially when the police find the drum. Also, you should probably erase those google searches for “acid, animal tissue and digestion.”

I hope you’ve learned something. Now I must get back to the Snapped marathon. Which is on pretty much every day. Seriously, Mike, you have nothing to worry about! Why are you locking me out….?


Beware Cat Kong and Dogzilla!

Posted on by

This year we have adopted a cat, her two kittens and a puppy. They have made life, um, interesting. Especially at Christmastime. No longer can I set out the ceramic nativy scene my mom painted years ago; the floor must be checked hourly for ornaments batted down from the tree. But perhaps what have suffered most are the advent calendars.

One has small stuffed dolls representing kids around the world, which are velcroed to a fabric tree. The other is a Playmobile scene you add to every day, including trees, a park bench, a mom and her baby, squirrels and birds. The kittens work in tandem with the puppy, knocking things down so the puppy can chew them. On any given day at our house you may hear:

“The cats got to the the doll calendar! Quick — where’s the Eskimo? Oh no, save her from the puppy! Oh, too late, her velcro is gone.”

“No, you can’t just set the squirrels on the pretend ground — make sure you hide them under the park bench. And put the baby behind the tree. Oh no, the tree is down! Repeat, the tree is down! We need a bird count!”

Nothing like plastic disaster to put you in the Christmas spirit.

Comments are closed

Merry Everything

Posted on by

This week I went to a craft store, and when I checked out, the sales clerk wished me a merry Christmas. As someone who celebrates Christmas, this doesn’t offend me, but I do always think about the people who don’t, and how they feel when they hear this (and I’m sure reactions vary widely). But my reaction on this occasion was complete surprise — I cannot remember the last time a stranger wished me Merry Christmas. Most clerk seem to go with the all-encompassing “Happy Holidays.” Then I realized the only things I had in my cart were:

a stocking

3 Christmas ornaments

Christmas-themed cookie cutters

So perhaps this was a clueless, un-PC woman, or perhaps she actually paid attention to the people she was checking out. In the spirit of goodwill, I’m going with the latter. Peace on Earth.


Sometimes Mother Nature wins

Posted on by

I take our role as “walkers” to the school seriously. We walk in the rain, we walk in the cold; you better believe we walk in the snow. So when the neighbors we usually walk with called one morning to say they were driving their kids to school because of the weather, my kids thought it was the perfect time to beg for a ride. Ha!

“We ‘re not made of sugar! Rain is not going to hurt us.” Seriously, when did I start talking like this? “Besides, you guys don’t even like to use your umbrellas — you think it’ s fun to get your hair wet.”

So we set off on our journey. After a block or so, I realized it wasn’t just raining. It was raining sideways. A little over half-way there, Tommy’s new umbrella turned inside out, snapping one of the spokes. We finally arrived at school, wind-blown, freezing and soaking wet. And I still had to walk home.

Yes, I got some exercise and saved some money on gas, but sometimes warm and dry is priceless.

Comments are closed

And I thought he was only proud of his hair

Posted on by

A few weeks ago, the Signet (gifted) program at Tommy’s school had a Parents’ Night, where we could go and see what our little geniuses had been up to the first couple months of school. There were several tables set up, and anywhere from 4-6 kids sit at each assigned table. I asked Tommy which table he sat at.

“Well, I used to sit there with the smart kids, but they split us up because we kept winning everything.”

I laughed out loud. “Tommy, this is Signet. ALL of the kids are smart!”

He gave me a pitying look. “No, Mom, not the smart table, the SMART smart table. And we won all the challenges, so we were split up. They wanted to be fair.”

I was a little taken aback by his matter-of-fact ego, but it was nicer than punching himself in the head.

Comments are closed

Perhaps you need to check the definition of stupid

Posted on by

Report cards finally came out. You may remember I hadn’t seen any of Tommy’s grades other than a B on a practice test. So I was relieved when he got 4 As and a B, but I knew he would be disappointed in the B. I just didn’t realize how much.

“Wow, honey, that’s a great report card! Almost straight As — you really worked hard!”

“I didn’t even look at it. As soon as I opened the folder and saw stupid Honor Roll [straight As is Principal's Honor Roll, you see] I shut the folder and puched myself in the head.”

OK, I admit my first instinct was to laugh. Who punches themselves in the head in the middle of class? Oh, my kid. The same one who covered himself with the “towel of shame” after a less-than-stellar swim meet. The same one who cries when he strikes out in baseball. That kid. I really don’t understand why he puts so much pressure on himself; we’ve tried to make it clear that we’re proud of the effort, not necessarily the result. But he is wired to scorn less-than-perfect.

Maybe he will grow out of it. Or maybe I will be forever comforting my “shameful” son who only makes the “stupid” regular honor roll.


Back to my day job

Posted on by

Let me just stretch my back for a minute, focus my eyes on something farther away than the computer screen….

I am leaving Friday for a scrapbooking week-end with friends. I get to spend all day at a hotel in my sweats (or as I like to call them, “day jammies”) looking at adorable pictures of my family, without them there to remind me that life is not always as perfect as said photographs. No cooking, no cleaning, no laundry; bags of M&Ms strewn around the table. Heaven.

The downside? I had not gone through our digital pictures in almost a year. (Gee we baked a lot of Christmas cookies last year! And what do you know, Kaylee lost a tooth!) I had literally thousands of pictures to wade through. I forgot that we figured out the high speed drive function on our camera, making it possible to take 10 pictures in a row, perfect for trying to get the perfect action shot in soccer, baseball, gymnastics, etc. Which means I could look at 100 pictures and find maybe three half-decent ones. But after a solid week of doing nothing but stare at a computer screen; editing, uploading, ordering; I am now back in the real world.

And it is FULL of laundry.


Honor Roll or bust

Posted on by

For the first two months of school, Tommy did not bring home a single graded paper. It was slightly worriesome, but since he is a good student and there were no problems on his interim, I let it go. Finally, he brought home one “grade” from a practice science test (which didn’t count). It was a B. Being the kind, sympathetic mom that I am, I asked why he didn’t get an A. (Hey, he’s supposed to be gifted in science!)

Kaylee overheard and asked me, “Why, Mommy? Is a B bad?”

Now, how do I answer that question? For Tommy, I know a B means he didn’t try hard enough. It’s 4th grade and he’s a smart kid, for goodness sake! Kaylee and Colleen don’t get letter grades yet, so I have no idea what a B would mean for either of them. (I mean, how much does an S really tell you?)

I eventually answered with, “I will be happy with any grade you get as long as you try your best. And I think Tommy can do better.” How do I expect their best without putting too much pressure on them? Or is that the million dollar question?

Comments are closed

Laundry is looking better and better

Posted on by

Play dates since my kids started full-day school have gotten interesting. They consist mostly of talking to adults, listening to other mommies discipline their kids (suckers!) and scrapbooking. In other words, play dates rock! It is always sad to miss them, because although my house is quiet, it is full of things to wash, clean and organize. Tomorrow I am missing play date, but I will not have to do any of those chores.

I am getting a root canal. Good times.

Comments are closed

Crying does not necessarily mean swine flu

Posted on by

So I am being a good mommy today, volunteering in Colleen’s class, when I get a text: two friends, one I haven’t seen in months, want to do lunch. I am being rewarded for my volunteerism! Yay! As I head out of Colleen’s class, I make a costly mistake — I decided to walk a few feet further down the hall to look at Kaylee’s “student of the week” poster and peek in her class. Looking through the open door, I can see Kaylee’s face and I can tell she’s been crying. Mistake # 2: I did not dart away right then and there. Kaylee sees me, runs out the door and starts sobbing into my arms.

As I plead with her to explain what happened, I get only, “I missed you.” “I’m tired.” “I don’t know why I’m crying I’m just sad.” (Which may be true in 10 years but I’m not buying it at age 6.)  Her teacher comes out and apologizes; she had been in the hall testing another student and didn’t see what happened. The substitute came out and said something about messy coloring. Aha! Now we are getting somewhere. Kaylee cannot handle criticism, and I feel in my gut this is why she was crying. But she swears up and down she’s just tired and sad. Her teacher suggests maybe she doesn’t feel well, because this is just not like her. Which is when every teacher and aide walking down the hall suddenly went into Flu Frenzy. “Does she have a fever?” “These things come on suddenly you know.” “You probably shouldn’t bring her back tomorrow either.” Kaylee begs to come home, despite her teacher’s urgings to stay at least through lunch and see how she feels (finally, a sane person!), and eventually I relent, grudgingly cancelling my lunch plans.

As I check her out at the office, they check her temperature “just in case.” 98.2, “a little feverish.” WHAT? Since when? Somehow we get out of there without getting quarantined. When we arrive home, Kaylee skips into the house and asks for string cheese on her way downstairs to watch TV. Hmm.

“You need to tell me right now why you were crying.” Sobbing again. “The teacher said my coloring was scribbliiiing!”

My lunch plans down the drain because I peeked in on her right after she was criticized. I KNEW that was it, but no, the flu the flu THE FLU! So after lunch (peanut and butter and jelly is not the same as a restaurant with friends) we are headed back to school. Hopefully we have both learned a lesson — but probably just me.